You’re thinkin’ maybe

2012 will be better?

If you’re thinking 2012 will be better, and you’ve decided to wait until the new year to kick into gear, you lose! That’s like saying you’re gonna quit smoking (drinking, doing drugs, eating so much) for the new year.

What’s happened to “now”? The “new year”? In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not 2012 yet! Or, perhaps you’re planning to be sick  for Christmas so you can avoid another dysfunctional family gathering?

Maybe you’re a big White House fan and figure –since 2009, 2010, and 2011 have’nt exactly been big economic rebound years– that 2012 will be Obama’s year of small business enlightenment? Don’t hold your breath. He’s proven he prefers union-vote paybacks and government splurging over championing the entrepreneurial spirit that built America.  

He prefers sharing the money you work hard for with those who choose their flat screen TVs and living room sofas over legitimate employment. Hey– free food, free medical care, free education, free cash– who can fault them? Ain’t Socialism wonderful?

So if you’ve worked hard all your life and earn a respectable living, pay your bills, give to charity, and are struggling to make ends meet with your business, don’t expect any sudden shifts in allegiance or respect or support from those in control. You’re just one of 30 million.

Here’s the bottom line:

Your Fairy Godmother

is not on the way.

Yes, the treuth hurts. Sorry about that.

Just in case you were keeping a low profile in your business with the hope and expectations that a more super-sized, more charged-up environment and marketplace is on the way, smack yourself along side the head, take a long hard look in the mirror and measure yourself up against these 5 steps

 . . . 5 things you need to do:

1.  Something instead of nothing. (In business and personal development, some action always beats no action!)

2.  Stop choosing excuses because you’re lazy. Waiting until the new year (or Christmas!) to jumpstart your sluggish enterprise is an excuse. Surprise yourself . . . start tonight or first thing tomorrow morning.

3.  Stop telling all those who work with you (employees, partners, family members, investors, referrers, suppliers, community members) about all the great promise “in store” for next year. Instead step it up now. Now.

4.  Put away the fantasyland thinking that you’ve used to convince yourself that you have time because nthere’s all the rest of October, and all of November and December to plan and get ready for some 2012 launches.

5.  Realize that even with –prayfully– a new administration in Washington to be elected on November 6, 2012, it won’t have any authority until January 2013. And it will likely take another 2-3 years to UN-do the mess Mr. O has put us all in. If your business is hurting now, it won’t survive another year or two, or three, of empty promises.

You really CAN walk the talk, you know. You’ve done it to get this far. It’s all a matter of choice. If you think it’s too hard, it will be. THAT is a choice as well. Choose to make it easy. Choose to make your business work NOW, and imagine how great it will be when we have national leadership that appreciates and respects small business!

~~~~~~~

Footnote: If you think this is a “lecture,” you are either too far gone to see the value of what’s represented, and probably shouldn’t be surfing blogs looking for inspiration that you won’t follow through with anyway, OR you have needed a good swift kick in the butt . . . I hope this served the purpose. Remember what your grandpa (and Thomas Jefferson) said about not putting off ’til tomorrow what you can do today?                               

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

 Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Small Businesses Once Again Ignored . . .

Financial Expert Reports 

of “Economic Rebound”

Grossly Exaggerated

 I had occasion yesterday to hear parts of a Baltimore radio broadcast that featured an on-air personality we will call Mr. Advisor, a man who proclaims himself a seminar presenter, radio and TV host, book author, and one of America’s top-ranked financial advisors.

I like this station’s programming. Most of the hosts are challenging, provocative, and informative. I try to tune in whenever I can.

I liked the overall theme of Mr. Advisor’s message which suggested that worrying about money gets us nowhere. As you know if you’ve visited here before, I have taught for more than 40 years that worry about ANYthing accomplishes nothing. Neither does dwelling on the past.

The past and future are fantasyland,

and generally not good places for

nurturing entrepreneurial minds.

So, if I am as I say, a present-moment, here-and-now thinker, who’s taught this mindset as the key to life success in management training sessions, college classrooms, books I’ve written, and this blog — what’s my issue? Part of my issue is with Mr. Advisor’s use of this awareness to quell economy fears as a bridge to selling his services.

I have no quarrel, in other words, with any effort to get people to focus more energy on the here and now because that is what life is really all about. I take exception with Mr. Advisor because after laying this groundwork, he proceeded to rattle off bogus interpretations of government and corporate statistics to make his points.

New housing startups and manufacturing indicators, he says, signal a rebounding economy . . . major corporate proclamations of sales and revenue increases and expansion plans add up to additional support, he says. Actual statements made were either misleading or naive. Considering his credentials, naivety is doubtful.

He tells his audience to not worry so much because things are looking up and that we can’t let fear of the unknown get in our way of making prudent investments. So do advisors who misrepresent reality.

Certainly, we as human beings do ourselves great injustice by fear of any unknown, but reality here has nothing to do with Mr. Advisor’s careful layering of reason to support his sales pitch.

The bottom line is that:

A)  The economy positively cannot rebound –no matter what government and mega-corporations do– until new small businesses begin to create new jobs.

B)  This is simply not going to happen with Mr. Obama in the White House because Mr. Obama has proven he is NOT a Democrat. He has proven, in fact, to be a Socialist who doesn’t believe in or accept the world of small business and free enterprise competition that built America (and the Democratic Party, I might add) to begin with. 

C)  It really makes no difference what big business and government try to accomplish if it’s without the support of small business.

(And, it’s here that Mr. Advisor goes astray. He seems –not unlike Messrs Obama and Biden– to forget and discount that there are 30 MILLION small business owners in the United States! But perhaps these are not prospective investors for Mr. Advisor?)

My point here is that Mr. Advisor is correct about the need for Americans to stay focused on the here and now, and not worry about what hasn’t come yet and may never come, and the unhealthiness of dwelling on the past that’s over and cannot be changed anyway.

These are mentally and emotionally sound ways to be thinking, but they are not portals to prudent investing. Neither are they any cause for a rebounding economy.

The economy is NOT turning around. Ask any of the 30 million small business owners out there. The economy is NOT rebounding because small business owners have no reason to trust a government that seeks to undermine, over-regulate and over-tax at every turn.

The issue, Mr. Advisor, is TRUST, and the fact is that this White House has failed to inspire any confidence or reason to believe. And as you surely know, Mr. Advisor, credibility is what drives market growth.

Why should small businesses create new jobs and then get slammed with major new taxes and regulations that end up costing them even more than a no-new-jobs economy is costing? Because Obama says that that won’t happen? HA! November 6, 2012. Be there.    

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Operating

a small business in 

times of personal trouble…

The most frequent consulting calls I get are from business owners who are experiencing personal emotional trauma, and who are trying to either ignore or bull their way through the upsets without acknowledging them.

Many talk and act as if they’re sizing up my marketing experience, but what they really want to know is if I can help them personally.

They throw little test questions out: “Uh, have you ever worked with partners who don’t always get along?” or “Have you had to deal with older family members who started a business, then turned it over to younger relatives?” or “How would you increase sales in a business where the boss’s wife had alcohol or drug problems?”

Some, of course, cut right to the chase: “I just got out of rehab and still have panic attacks, but nobody else can run the business; what can you do to help?” or “My partner is the money behind this business, and he’s an idiot and we’re on the verge of breaking up; can you help pick up our sales while we divorce?”

I have a little reminder note pasted on my workstation:  “Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.” You may have to become as old as I am to really appreciate the truth of this, but if you ARE less than 150, I can assure you that truer words were never spoken.

And there’s no discrimination that disallows business owners. We all carry our own burdens through life. How we strike a balance with the businesses we run makes the difference between success and failure. Dealing effectively with the whole mess, time after time, depends on how effectively we balance our own emotions.

Dismissing, or disregarding the reality of what we face accomplishes nothing, and often makes things worse. Jumping headlong into upsets is a get-screwed-up-quick formula that can wreak havoc on both the business and your personal life. Balance means holding the ship steady through stormy weather regardless of preferences.

In other words, this isn’t football,

and acting headstrong can get

 us sacked on the one-yard line 

We need to be able to put aside our emotional attachments; we need to be able to let go of some of the ties that bind. We need to accept that we don’t always have all the answers and be willing to go with the flow when problems overwhelm us. Can it be God or an inner spirit challenging us to rise to the occasion? Is it a test of your mettle?

“If you can get through this, you can get through anything,” my wise old uncle used to say, but he never mentioned that there would be a least hundreds of “this” times.

Life is about challenge. So is entrepreneurship. Just make sure you keep your personal life in balance with your family and those around you. If you stand tall in troubled waters, the business will heal itself. Where to start? Try some deep breathing for openers, and then begin to sort out and prioritize before you take action.   

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Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

How to run a business

while your way of life

is under attack . . .

It’s no secret. Unless you’ve been away visiting friends and family on Jupiter, there’s no way you could not be aware of the increasingly rapid emergence of America’s Socialistic policies.

There is no way you could not be aware of the union-spawned turmoil government has predictably forced upon a scared, angry, disenfranchised, and economically fragile general public.

Doubtful? Just look around you. Go sit in a crowded place and just watch. See the faces filled with looks of worry, dispair, anguish, frustration, wrinkled brows, downturned mouths, sad eyes, slumped shoulders. Listen to the moans and groans and nervous laughter. 

Our way of life is under attack.

Our sense of patriotism and morals, the faith we’ve always had in ourselves and the small businesses and professional practices we own and manage is being undermined daily by our own government and so-called leaders.

We have a White House and Senate tilted so heavily to the left that there is no more balance in American lives. There is no longer room for God? Parental respect? Small business as a way of life?

So how do we get past present union and government attempts to disrupt and destroy small business?

It’s shape-up or ship-out time!

Assess where you are. Be honest with yourself as to how you evaluate and measure your buiness progress and losses. Decide how to make the best use of what you have. (You’ve already been doing this or you wouldn’t be alive right now, so keep at it, and accelerate your efforts.)

THINK IN DIFFERENT BOXES!

Continue to NOT trust the government we’ve been saddled with. It hasn’t proven itself worthy of being trusted.

In other words, even though WE all know that small business creation of new jobs is the only answer to turning the economy — don’t create new jobs! Why? Why create new jobs simply to turn around and be penalized for it?

That government/union olive branch you reach to accept will be followed by a slashing machete.

Promises of immediate help are two-faced. They are laced with quiet admissions that long-term financial punishment is inevitable.

Sure, go ahead. Create new jobs now and get lower taxes and some make-believe incentives for doing that now. Then what? Feel that stab wound in your back? Next year or the year after (the identical dynamics of Obamacare), the great new jobs you created will come back in spades into your wallet with make-up-the-difference tax increases (plus!) and even more intrusive regulations.

What else is there to do? Remember November 6, 2012.  

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

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  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Labor Day Leftovers . . .

White House, union thugs

seek to rally violence,

DE-Americanize 

small business.

On –of all days– Labor Day, and in –of all places– Detroit, home of the highest unemployment rate in the US (nearly 16%!), we get bone-chilling reports of attempts to incite violence from two LINOs (Leaders In Name Only).

The spitting of vicious words was barely even acknowledged by mainstream media.  “Union King” Jimmy Hoffa, Jr, and Mr. O combined efforts to threaten violence (and ignore that it was even a threat!).

Over-the-top Junior Hoffa shouted out a rally cry to:

“Take out those (Tea Party)

sons of bitches”

. . . as part of his rant and rave Labor Day speech. This kind of inflammatory rhetoric has no place in a democratic society, and has even less of a place coming from the mouth of a purported “leader.”

Mr. O, in an disgraceful throw-back to Chicago thug days, made no attempt to soften the comments or language, and –in fact, just seconds later– proceeded to praise Hoffa.

Pretty amazing behavior for a man who claims to embrace peace and forgiveness over violence (reference his 2008 campaign speeches), eh? 

If any of us (among 30 million small business owners) were ever to make such inciteful fist-thrusting comments about business competitors, we would be out of business (or in jail) by 9am tomorrow.

How is it even possible that such low-life comments can be made in public? Freedom of speech? HA! How about inciting a riot? How about defamation? How about common courtesy? How about considering the impact on young people? How about having a brain?

But then, perhaps it’s just more reinforcement that politics is a career for the brainless, yes?

What’s the bottom line?

The enemy of small business

is the constant exposure

to hateful politics,

So, do we swear off of politics? Well, first of all, such an intention (like those that pave that famous road) might sound honorable, but it’s really not possible unless you do a guru-on-the-mountaintop thing. Politics invades every inch of our lives, and the worst of it dominates. Well, we could always avoid the media, right?

How is it, for example, that the nation awaits Mr. O’s much-too-long-overdue promise of a job speech and supposed plan (that was needed three years ago!), while we ignore Mitt Romney’s thoughtful, reasonable, and immediate business-positive plan to reverse our dying economy?

How do meaningful and positive suggestions from those who embrace Tea Party thinking get immediately dismissed by the ruling Socialist radicals without giving even the time of day?

Why must the White House expend more time and money and energy seeking re-election votes than tending to the immediate needs of the American people? What about righting our sinking economic ship instead of praising the ignorance of an empty-suit union leader because he controls large blocs of votes?

Icing on the cake:

Mr. Biden today called

Tea Party supporters:

“Barbarians”!

Talk about unbelievable

It really is getting close to that time when the present anti-business (and especially anti-small business) White House must be upended and removed from office. Are you speaking out? Are you taking steps to initiate action — to motivate and inspire others to the importance of choosing America’s direction and the direction of small business.

Are you ready to thrive again? Are you ready to help ensure return to our free enterprise small business system that has always been the backbone and heart of our nation? November 6, 2012. Be there. 

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302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make Today a GREAT day for someone! 

America’s

“Childish” President

is Using America’s

30 Million

Small Business Owners to 

Play Politics Instead of

Fix the Economy 

Okay, so just a couple of hours after this post was written, the man has backed down from his one-upmanship scheduling of his “Jobs Speech” and will instead deliver it the following night. While I’d like to think my post and others had some impact, truth is that Mr. O realized a bigger better political advantage to moving his appointed time out from under the GOP Debate.

The bottom line is nothing else in this post changes: Don’t expect anything new, and don’t expect jobs to come begging for employees. You can be certain more taxes are on the way to fund the man’s extremist plans to spread the wealth . . . and now, of course, to spread the fantasy jobs!

~~~~~~~~

Mr. O has suddenly scheduled what will inevitably be great oratory on our catastrophic quagmire of an economy –that he has compounded at every turn and hasn’t been able to do a single constructive thing about since 2008 — for 8PM, Sept. 7th.

He takes a childish posture in setting his stage at precisely the same time as the long-planned GOP Presidential Candidate’s debate . . . and then he says the responses to his one-upmanship are “childish.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black?

~~~~~~~~

Why should we small business owners and entrepreneurs and managers care?

First, because business owners want to hear how other Presidential candidates plan to fix the economy that Mr. Obama has failed to fix.  

Second, because it’s been proven ad nauseam and reinforced by every economist worth her or his salt that the only road to economic recovery is for government to WHOLEHEARTEDLY support and encourage new business job development by entrepreneurs.

~~~~~~~~

The White House knows this and has intentionally ignored thousands of opportunities to initiate tax incentives for new business job creation and tax incentives for new business innovation (leading to job creation). So, why now? November 6, 2012 is right around the corner. Why a Sept. 7th 8pm speech? Because politics beats reality.

No need to be a brain surgeon to understand this. Any small business owner or legitimately unemployed person gets the reality of it. Why doesn’t the White House? This hyped up speech will –I guarantee– be about nothing realistic. The opportunity for that has already come and gone more times than the EverReady Rabbit! 

Mr. O will pay token attention to small business, but never reach out a true helping hand. He will bury nice-sounding words in meaningless rhetoric. And therein lies the problem:

America needs jobs. New small business provides virtually all new jobs. America’s 30 million small business owners do not trust Mr. Obama. Period.

Why should anyone capable ofr creating new jobs create new jobs because of promises from a man who has a long track-record of not keeping promises? I create 50 new jobs because the government assures me of new job salary rebates or some other fantasyland benefit. The promise collapses. I am stuck with 50 people I can’t afford.

~~~~~~~~

The Issue Is TRUST.

This White House has failed to earn the trust of small business over and over and over again.

Without trust, there can be no relationship.

There can be no deal.

There can be no forward movement.

There can be no salvaging The Great Obama Depression.

There can be no economic recovery.

There can, and undoubtedly will be a lot of talk and a lot of smiles and a lot of handshakes and reassuring references and pats on the back. But –mark my words– it will all be for show. This is simply one more campaign op! Surely the Republican Debate will crank out more business-friendly job creation proposals.

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  Open Minds Open Doors 

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  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

SURPRISE HURRICANE-PROMPTED SUNDAY POST TONIGHT. NEXT POST MONDAY OR WHEN POWER IS ON. PLEASE CHECK BACK . . .

Another storm,

another dollar.

 Hey, life happens. 

Stop whining!

Besides,

breathing beats cash.

There comes a time (a few actually) in every life, when we business owners and entrepreneurs must take a back seat to Mother Nature. You DO remember her? I’m not talking about over-the-top dirtpeople, or eco-freaks who launch themselves into hysteria with every stepped-on ant or toilet flush.

I’m referring to cataclysmic shifts in the planetary forces of nature that stop businesses dead in their tracks, that cannot be dismissed or disregarded or wiggled around. I know it’s hard to own up to the fact that anything could be more important than business . . . yet, looming out there under the signs, ads, and brochures, is life!

Here we quake-inexperienced East-Coasters are emerging out of an unheard of earthquake, the 5.8 magnitude of which –though nonchalantly considered routine by West Coast standards (I mean, what isn’t?)– was sufficient test of our mettle . . . and: CABOSH! Along comes a Hurricane heralded as major by all the IM (Irresponsible Media).

I’m reminded of Rob Bell’s quote in his courageous, easy-read book, LOVE WINS.  The quote refers to tangles born of the politics of religion, but seems to me to fit the media hurricane circus and pandemonium we’ve been bombarded with for five days:

“Sometimes what we are witnessing

is simply a massive exercise

in missing the point.”

Who’s not fed up with mainstream media’s overkill –and frequently contrived– “storm tracking” coverage? Enough already! Sports belong to ESPN; leave hurricanes to TWC. Stop with all the prima donna network weather forecasters (Whoops, I mean “Meteorologists”) who can barely find the maps they swoop their hands over. 

Of course no one wishes storm destruction and risks of life and injury to others, and of course there are many calls for reminders to be prepared in an impending hurricane but please, media people . . . give us a break. Your relentless focus on doom and gloom, is –all by itself– enough to send people flying off city rooftop gardens!

Well, okay, your heavy-handed scare tactic broadcasts did at least serve to convince Mr. O that he’d be storm-safer at the White House than puttering around a reported $50,000 vacation week (his tenth this year? Must be nice) Martha’s Vineyard golfcourse.

Who could deny the (rapidly-growing-in-popularity)

  Obama Regime motto: “Leadership from behind”? 

No doubt whatsoever he will once again seize the opportunity of a natural disaster to represent his sleeves-rolled-up self in the role of “return of the conquering and compassionate hero.” As business owners and managers, we have already seen too much of this too often. Were we to practice such falsity, our businesses would crumble.

Also without a doubt, we can count on the talking heads at CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, TNT and their affiliate braindead-behaving editors at The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, et al, to play it out for all the advertising dollars their sadly misguided Obama-obsessed bosses can muster.

The point that’s missed by all the sensationalist journalists is that the public gets it. Go through the updates and recommended preparation steps at scheduled news broadcasts. If and when the event actually occurs, lead up to it with information, not Chicken Little alarmist reports. Who cares what trees fell in Bongo-Bongo?

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

If you own a small business,

then small business

politics owns you.

You can run but you cannot hide. 

Even if you are a one-man-band or one-woman-band with no internal politics, you have no choice but to deal with external politics.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re an owner, operator, partner, or manager of an American small business or professional practice. You may own all or a piece of what you do, but the government (and politics) owns all of you!

~~~~~~~~~~

Regardless of all other influences in your life, when you own or run a business of any type or size, you still must face the fact that the massive amount of government controls and regulations alone can ruin more than your favorite breakfast, a good night’s sleep, and even a kaleidoscopic sunset. It can ruin your health and your family.

Since the government for the most part dictates what you can and cannot do; what you must pay for goods, services, and taxes, and when; who you can and cannot do business with and hire or fire; how you must treat and insure those you hire and how you must treat and pay off those you fire

. . . since it dictates what kinds of tools and equipment and forms and suppliers and shippers and transportation you must use . . . even how you state your business to others . . . and since government is born of politics, while somehow managing to also be its inseparable twin . . . There IS a breaking point.

It’s a never-healing small business stress fracture!

And now, clearly on track toward a Marxist dictatorship by way of the nonstop and sorely misguided Obama Socialism freight train, America’s small business community has reached that breaking point.

First off, there are 30 million small businesses in the U.S. Don’t believe the White House; they are patently and intentionally wrong; home-based businesses are conveniently ignored. The government doesn’t consider home-based businesses as worthy enough enterprises to allow them to be included under useless SBA jurisdiction.

You run an online business out of your closet, a jewelry-making business out of your garage, a cookie business out of your kitchen, or a grass-cutting business from your truck . . . you don’t count! The government only wants your tax dollars. Beyond that, you don’t exist! So, back to the beginning: there are 30 million of us!

If you are anything like the vast majority of small business owners and operators, home-based or otherwise, you clearly have a goal to make a difference with your life and your enterprise . . . for your self, your family, your community and hopefully –by the ways that you do what you do– for our nation as well.

That means taking some minutes out of your hectic schedule. It means putting down your tools, equipment, keyboards, dishtowel and whatever else you make a living with, for just long enough to take that step you dread into the sleazy world of politics. It’s time to do your part — show and inspire others to leadership.

It means taking just long enough to visit or write a couple of letters or emails to politicians about why you think small business matters. Take just enough time to support those who support your ideas about why small business matters. Why? Because small business does matter. And because it matters that we all step up.

Imagine the impact: 

THIRTY MILLION

visits and letters and emails calling attention to the economic recovery role of small business and why government must invest in small business –not with more wasted cash handouts– with tax incentives for innovation and tax incentives for job creation.

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  Hal@Businessworks.US  

  Open Minds Open Doors 

 Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Big-mouth

media muckity-mucks

bullying your business?

Is it just me or are you as fed up as I am with all those annoying, pestering, mean-spirited, arrogant, nasty, intolerant, rude, feeble, badgering excuses for news reporters and interviewers that we see on mainstream media TV?

1) They are stupid!

2) They need to shut up and listen!

These people –and “these” includes nearly all of the biggest network news anchors and interview specialists– should be (willingly of course, in the interests of media integrity) duct-taped to the wall (nicely, with no circulation cut off), socks (clean ones you can breathe through) stuffed (gently) in their mouths and made to listen for just a minute or two to the answers that the objects of their insults provide to their printed questions. 

(Gee, Hal, say what you really feel. Hmmm. Well, no need to call out the ACLU, Law & Order’s SVU, or a friendly neighborhood SWAT Team, but it is a way to finally hear someone’s complete uninterrupted response; hey, you can un-duct them and give them lemonade after the questions are answered; how’s that?)

TV interrogations (er, interviews) are so relentlessly overbearing and obnoxious that audiences never get chance to hear responses that could make a difference. Have you seen or heard a single interview of any politician who’s not part of the Obama regime who has not been talked over and pummeled in the questioning process?

Even waterboarding might be kinder. 

Are you unconsciously absorbing media badgering techniques and integrating them into your dealings with partners, investors, employees, suppliers, customers? Are you sure?

I have yet to hear a talking-head question that’s not a camouflaged accusation. Is that little bit of manipulation finding its way into your business dealings? Are media people making it seem like an okay way to conduct yourself?

I mean we’re not talking about the sharpest tools in either shed when it comes to news people interviewing politicians, but come on now; someone’s going to be representing us, and it won’t be a media prima donna, right? As for your business . . .

If you are buying into these methods, you’re being psychologically bullied.

If your ego is as big as the TV puppets you know we’re talking about here, so big that you have had to reduce yourself to bullying and badgering in order to create controversy and get industry or professional attention, for example, you are probably missing the defined purpose of your career.

News “Reporters” are. It’s their job to illuminate and enlighten . . . to report what happens. How many actually make that a priority? (I can name two out of thousands.)

The media people I speak of should only know what bitter, uninformed jerks they look like to their viewers. Clearly they have no regard for their own self-respect or anyone else’s who happens to disagree with the producers and owners who pull their puppet strings in order to win audience shares that attract corporate advertising dollars.

Too bad they’re so dependent, and so blindly convinced that they are digging for “the truth.” Nothing could be farther from . . .

Sure, everyone has heard their parents and grandparents start a sentence out with: “When I was growing up . . .”

And you know what? There’s enormous wisdom locked up in statements that start that way. 

But discovering those gems requires listening — opening ears, and minds, instead of rolling eyes.

So try this on: “When I was growing up, a “Reporter” was a respected observer, not a wise-guy loud-mouth more invested in self-promotion than in bringing enlightenment to reader/viewer/listener audiences. When Walter Winchell reported the news, he didn’t put an egotist spin into every statement. He was a professional.

Of course there were others. Just go to Bing and Google and find them. Start with Huntley and Brinkley, and Mike Wallace, and Paul Harvey. Oh, you say, but they weren’t 100% ethical either. Who says? Who is? And isn’t 90-something percent a whole lot better than single digits? What percent are you? What percent is your business?  

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